Monthly post's.....where does the time go!

Busy, busy month........

Moving forward in a sideways kind of way. I have started programming on the whole garment machine, complicated but I am hopeful that perseverance will get me there!

Next challenge is short projects to develop texture, soft, hard....that sort of thing.

Last meeting with Julie generally very positive and helpful so we continue in good spirits.

I feel like I have had a headache for the last week but I think that may be Xmas.

Need to focus and sleep and knit. Will start with knitting!

Free at Last...

Well not quite!

The good news is my proposal has been registered , no amendments or rewrites, huge relief. This means I have to do this thing and I feel like I am looking down a long, long tunnel desperately trying to see the end. At this point that's not what I should be thinking about but some thoughts just won't be banished!

The Friday before submission the RPT's had an informal presentation to each other as a good practice exercise. In the course of the presentations it became very clear that the more mature amongst the group had a similar driver, even though I don't think we had actually recognised it.

The need we all expressed, interestingly I thought, was creativity.

We had had career's in areas we had trained for........making us the lucky ones when you think of how few jobs there ever are, we weren't unhappy or necessarily unfulfilled yet this "itch" had imposed itself on us and brought us back to University.

It was Yvonne who pointed it out, (thanks Yvonne sometimes you just don't see what is in front of your nose!) and the more it goes around in my head the more true it becomes! That just leaves one, question why do I think there is some untapped well of creativity as yet unnoticed by anyone (myself included!!)?

Honestly............I don't! I don't know if it is there, or even what it really is. I do know I am sick and tired of wondering whether I just didn't have the talent to be able to really push myself, or just couldn't decide to take the risks. I am a good knitter, I understand knitted fabrics I can develop work intuitively and responsively so now I need to look at how to pull that into something I can build on.

The plan of action is to work on silhouette on the stand....play with shape and continue developing fabrics along side. I have not worked like this before, I am used to either being given a shape and designing a fabric to fit or having a fabric and cutting it into a shape ,and it intrigues me. I am starting to think about yarns, but not colour. And finally I am getting my hands on the power machines!!

Oh and it looks like I am going New York in February.......looks like I am finally breaking bad!!

Reflecting...

Well here we are, two days to submission and I can't say I am fine about it but I am more fine than I thought I would be! Yesterday all of the RPT's who could attend had an informal presentation with Carey and Yvonne to talk about what we were going to spend the next two (!) years doing. It was good to have Yvonne there as she had no prior knowledge of them so coming to it cold her reactions were possibly indicative of the board.....

They all have an element of improving our own practice and the more mature of us had a need to be more creative.........that's a working life for you it makes you skilled, efficient and very good but it doesn't let you take risks!!

Listening to the proposals I was struck just how much talent was there and the breadth of both practice and perspective was really impressive!

Personally I am really excited to see where they all go....but especially Martha's' her applications for knitted fabrics are stunning.....I am quite awed by the way she works.

Well I'm off to kick the printer....what's the betting I buy a new one this weekend.......mmm!

Feeling back in control...

Another meeting with Julie yesterday and (finally) I am doing this, it's not doing me!

I have a handle on the theory of research and more importantly how I can use it as a tool rather than be held hostage by it!

My proposal needs a couple of tweaks and it will be done and this whole thing now has a shape I can begin to identify with.

If anyone ever reads this and finds themselves in a position where they are struggling this is what helped me:

• Read outside your area, sometimes theory is easier to understand when it is written for other disciplines as it is described in different language, just because a book has been written for you doesn't mean you will feel any empathy with it. In fact it can make you more insecure because you feel you should understand it better and you just don't!
• Talk to everyone, I am part time so don't have a 'class' I belong to so felt I was the only one struggling. I wasn't, everyone was in the same boat. You have a mouth use it to communicate!
• Don't retreat into your shell, you will go mad. Say things you may feel are to stupid to say out loud it's not stupid not to know stuff it's stupid not to ask! You are doing this to learn and sometimes you have to take a risk and feel a bit silly. These conversations are part of the process and they may lead somewhere constructive.

Hope this helps!

Stinking cold not helped by trying to write an academic document!

Can't get in to Uni as I am ill and I am desperately trying to get my proposal together.

Online access to the library is patchy at best and I am soooo over thinking!! Everything sounds pretentious or stupid....

Light........?

Today was an interesting day (I use the term interesting more and more....like Alice down the rabbit hole).

Second meeting with Julie and I think I have isolated a research question...."How can designer led innovation effect the the development and use of knitting machine technology?" It seems to sum up the questions that bug me, and the issue that brought me here. It also lends itself to a suck it and see methodology which is how fabric development works. So that is good as I am facing forward now.

The other thing that happened was less comforting in many ways. It was a lecture with Carole Gray, and it left me with a few questions. Primarily, is it possible that Art and Design has allowed the Academic Establishment to define research in a way that legitimises it in the establishments terms leaving the Designer Practitioner explaining their contribution within a framework that is not natural to the context of their work? I guess this possibly derives from the vocabulary that surrounds research but looking around the room I would guess there were a lot of students asking a similar question, or with some reservations. It could be we are just worried our ability to do what we do will disappear if we take it apart, which is superstitious at best!

Tried to thrash it out with Dr. Buglear on my return and he seemed amused at my unease pointing out that the argument I was setting forth demonstrated I was using the methods of research (posing a specific question and then reacting to the answer in a way that allowed me to re-frame my initial proposition) I was questioning. Seeing it written down makes it seem silly that I am uncomfortable with the idea but I am. I have decided to make a decision in the light of this discussion and follow it through. I will accept the idea it is of value (as I have to research to pass...), throw myself into the reflective process and will see what tools it gives me. After all you have nothing to fear but fear itself and suck it and see is the way I have learnt so far.........wish me luck!!

Where is the time going....

It has been almost two weeks since I have even had time to think about doing this Blog.......scary busy.

The good news, I have had a full health and safety induction therefore indemnifying the Uni against legal action stemming from my own stupidity. The better news is I have had a power machine induction and been in the hand flat room (the bad news is what I knitted is shit but I bent no needles and remembered what everything did so there is hope).

I now also have sketchbook work, and a lead on what I want to produce. However until I see Julie next week I won't be able to get the knot out of my gut. It is (I think) the funny thing about the nature of study in A&D that regardless of whether any feedback is good or bad you need it to plot your path, markers on the road if you like......I make the point about it being a particular notion to A&D as it really is so personal. Sorry if that sounds pretentious but it is like having your kids judged by super nanny.....if she likes them you are a good parent, if she doesn't ....well let's not go there!

Useful meeting with Cary and the rest of the RPT.PT in the pub....much more relaxing than talking things through in a studio. Also had a brilliant lecture last Monday ( would almost go as far to say the lecture programme alone makes it worth the fee).

Sooooo I think I know what I want and more or less how it will look (well.....less, but it is starting to be more than a musing) now I have to wrap it in a research context.......back to the books then.

Oh and the kids are eating better......

Slept...

Best night sleep in a week, Him Indoors left me to sleep in....9.15am!!

Starting to get my head around what is going on with my 'PROJECT'. what I am trying to do is create a fabric that hasn't been created...so no pressure there then.

How to feel this, explain this, that's the issue. One word keeps bubbling to the surface Legacy. I need to have a grip on why we do what we do, the roots of the understood parameters of knitted fabrics and then subvert them to be able to use the techniques in a different way. I also know what is driving the project.........dissatisfaction. Knitting machines have not changed in 200 years they are recognisably and functionally the same. Computers are the big leap forward but they are simply used to find a quicker more efficient way of doing the same thing. I have a hunch (the bells, the bells) that the bed needs to change ......needles need to go in calibrated modules not in slots on the bed. The modules can then be changed for others that hold needles of a different gauge. Multi gauge knitting. Fabulous from a design perspective!!

Soooo first I need to produce beautiful fabrics that can't be produced because the machines don't exist then I need to get Shima (of similar) to talk to me about the feasibility of how you make a machine to knit them...HA!

This is interesting as it is not just about the product it's about the process and the machinery....but it does leave me with an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. But it is my MA and my idea has to have room and potential to develop even if the developments hit dead ends.

More worryingly (and pressing) I am musing about what the kid's will eat for lunch. Mustn't make the mistake I made last night and present them with a selection of random food items (I am crap at being a mother when distracted). Having said that I liked it, although their distress at being given chicken drumsticks, gnocchi,squid and corn on the cob was obvious!

after the crit is over...

Well here we are one crit into an MA. what do we know......?

• the young (ooh my hip aches today) designers and creative practitioners (to be known in future as DCP's) on this course are good...


• people can be lovely.


• the lack of criticism is not a criticism in itself .....but it might be....


• I really want to work by myself, I love other people but I also care too much about them...sometimes you have to let people feed themselves (metaphorically speaking) it is so difficult to try to feed the world.


• ....and too tiring....

Oh and always make a film...(bet you knew that Louis B. Mayer!!)!